


You were the only one who could call me Amy.

by RedLights234



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen, Internal Monologue, Post-Season/Series 16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27470365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLights234/pseuds/RedLights234
Summary: You were the only one who could call me Amy, you and no one else. That’s what you called me when I got the highest grade in biology, that’s what you called me when I told you I was thinking about leaving home and you called me that when I was walking to the place, assuming it’s a place, where you are now. You were shouting my name with so much force that, at some point, I think I followed your voice to come back here, to get back with you and to apologize.
Relationships: Amelia Shepherd & Derek Shepherd, Atticus Lincoln/Amelia Shepherd, Meredith Grey/Amelia Shepherd, Meredith Grey/Derek Shepherd
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	You were the only one who could call me Amy.

There’s not much point in being here. It doesn’t make much sense to look for a sanctuary when you don’t even believe there’s life after death, when you don’t believe that someone from heaven eavesdropped on the thin walls the prayers that those who remained turn to them to feel better, To get clean, to go to sleep knowing I did everything that needed to be done. It doesn’t make sense, but what in my life made sense? You know, sometimes I think back to the wooden dining table we had in the kitchen. At our house, for a long time, we all silently ate around that table, without wanting to move in the dining room. Mom was mentally planning her next steps. While thinking about what had to be done to make the afternoon go smoothly for everyone, she was already ready to roll up her sleeves to help us with future projects, with the projects of now. The absence for her has always meant selling her smile, hers, what we do not know well, what only dad knew. When we sat around that table, at least on the hottest days, and the window was open I could see in it the reflection of the exit of our house, I could think of going through it with a backpack on my shoulder and I could think that the noise in my head somewhere else would be accepted. I always made more noise than you, I always screamed louder and I always cried more. Nancy called me 'Tragedy Amy' and I, in turn, while trying to refute that horrible nickname, confirmed the drama inherent in my DNA. You were the only one who could call me Amy, you and no one else. That’s what you called me when I got the highest grade in biology, that’s what you called me when I told you I was thinking about leaving home and you called me that when I was walking to the place, assuming it’s a place, where you are now. You were shouting my name with so much force that, at some point, I think I followed your voice to come back here, to get back with you and to apologize. I stole your best years, I robbed Mom of the tranquility she needed after Dad, I stripped everyone of the floor under her feet and made you tired and vulnerable. I have dragged you like a monster who forcefully brings innocent people into his darkness. You had nothing to do with all that crap, you had nothing to do with it. You shone, you let me shine. You were afraid I’d go away forever and then.. You went away. 

I went to Meredith yesterday, I wanted to ask her what might be your shrine, a place where your aura would resonate in our eardrums a little louder. Zola opened up to me. How much she grew, how much she has the same your way of approaching things and people. How did you teach her all this? Why didn’t you teach me? She calls me Aunt Amy. The first time I heard that nickname, I was eating your kids cereal. Meredith told me about her speech the day before and, as usual, she had in her voice that implied sadness, that perception of not having been enough, of not having given all of herself in something. Zola’s voice came as a whisper but with a naturalness typical of those who, like her, to a nickname associate only one person, not three thousand worlds. "Amy" , she called me and I couldn’t get a word in. I wanted to tell her that I would gladly help her with her science project, but my mouth remained half-open for a period of time that must have seemed infinite to her. Then I spoke. Meredith is doing a great job with them, with all of them. Three kids, the three kids you were talking about when you were yelling at our mom, when you told her that your future three kids wouldn’t grow up in silence. I always try to speak loudly with them, make them laugh, fly over my head and talk about how in the future they will have to learn to cope with things. Yeah, in things, that’s what I call my fear of passing on the drug gene to them. One day I will have to tell my son probably. I went to Meredith yesterday, but I did not ask anything. She probably would have told me to take a ferryboat and she would have done it with the same air that so many times scolded me for my desperate tone of your death. She would have looked at me like I didn’t have the right to talk to you, and I would have believed it because I think I’m responsible for your lack of white hair and not being ready to save your life. I know she doesn’t do it on purpose, I know there’s a lot of you in her eyes. A love like yours can only end up like this: with eyes mixed, with blood loaned, with the brain divided and then joined and then manipulated, used, held together. I didn’t ask her where I could talk to you because I can’t bear to see her pain again. We just started talking. I told her about sex. Oh, stop being a baby Derek, I’ve been a mother twice, you know it takes wood to make a table and sex to make a child. I told her that I still feel scarred by pregnancy, I told her about insecurities and I did it with that note of Amy tragedy but also of Amelia without filters. It was then on the way home that I decided to come here.

We were together, we were trying an intervention, we were focused on the goal: to save someone’s life, someone’s mom. You’re trusting me again in this room. In this room we performed the miracle of ninety seconds, in this room you let me shine for a while and I tasted every moment of that freedom. Sometimes you were blinding Derek, but you weren’t here. If I close my eyes I can still remember the feeling of our hands moving harmoniously in the speed of limited time. I can hear your snorting from time to time, I can hear Lexie Grey’s voice reading that scary number. It’s absurd that I’m the only one alive. It’s absurd that I stayed alive because I did everything I could to lose this life, not you. You, with your fearful and bright presence, Lexie with her future as a neurosurgeon and with the tenacity she showed on that occasion and with the love of a sister for Meredith. She wouldn’t pretend to feel pain, she’d be a good sister. In the past, I used to think about what would have happened if I had died, if that pill, the one before my Christopher, had caused my heart to collapse. I was wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t heard your voice calling so insistently. Shortly before giving birth I thought of my hypothetical funeral. Would there have been someone ready to cry for me? Maybe Maggie, maybe Link. Maybe for the occasion Stephanie Edwards, April Kepner and Arizona Robbins would return. Then the thought stopped because I started thinking that Arizona Robbins is really sexy. Pregnancy, hormones. 

Derek, in this room, I can hear you hugging me, and in this room, I can tell you what I’m looking for. I became a mom again eight weeks ago. I’ve been holding my little baby and I wish I could tell you that I’ve been thinking about you every day since, but I really haven’t had much time to think. Did you know that children cry? They cry a lot and sleep very little. I mean, you just have this chance to rest without anyone waking you up or bothering you, why don’t you take advantage of it? Yeah, I really tried to tell him that way. I thought of you a few days ago when, in the new house, I found two coins behind a dog tag in the bathroom. I thought about which city would want to buy the child or the child who left these coins here and I felt sad because I will not be able to give them back. And then you got into my brain, into our beloved brain, and you never got out. It’s hard to be a mom, and I doubt it’s gonna get any easier, I doubt there’ll be any birds in the middle of their beak with an instruction manual to avoid raising your kid like you. Link is really good with him and sometimes I get angry because I love him so much that I wish I could get my whole life back with him. I wish I could take him to my past, I wish I could show him the inside of my head, and I would sit at that table with him talking out loud, laughing loudly and loving louder. 

Derek I’m feeling an infinite love that in the past life took from me too soon. I’m feeling what Mom must have felt with you because I’m sure I’ll love him the same way, I’ll love him for his immense strength and his ability to make me laugh. I’m trying, I’m living, and I’m not denying that it’s hard not to think, hard not to let go. I keep going to meetings and the alcoholics, the addicts, the ones who are like me and who like me are trying to survive, gave me a little lion-shaped rattle, they said that if it is from me then it will be strong. Maybe someone’s really starting to see me now that I’m okay, now that I’m trying and breathing, and I want to do it with all the chaos in my head, too. Derek, I’m here because I confront every day with the right love to move on, with that dose of confidence that I once didn’t understand but now I crave. You would have liked to have been my son’s uncle, you would have made me angry with the unsolicited advice, and then you would have pinched my cheek before you left, and I’ll see you tomorrow, Amy, try not to kill him. That rattle would have made a nice noise ringing on your head. I miss you, I miss you every day, and every day I regret the time I’ve lost, the love I’ve put off, the calls I haven’t made, the screaming I haven’t heard. But you didn’t regret anything Derek, you walked safely. I close my eyes and in a moment you are here Derek, you enter the room with a frowny look. You’ve got a little bit of milk on your blue scrubs, maybe you went to see Ellis in kindergarten, and maybe you checked out my son, too, and he, in return, left a nice memory on your scrubs. You have your ferryboat cap in your hands, you twist it and you think. Then you look at me Derek and then I miss you and then you disappear and then you reappear, I’ll never get rid of this thought, I don’t want to get rid of you and me trying to save the mom of Cooper’s kid and Cooper video-calling me every week and reminding me how big we are Shepherds and that we can do anything. I envy that confidence in his eyes and I love him because he puts you and me on an equal footing. Our plans have always been different, uncoordinated, separated, attracted by the extremes of the same world. I miss you, I’m mom, I hear you, I’m praying. You’re still my favorite brother.


End file.
